- 56 - MATCHING LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS WITH AVAILABLE RESOURCES by T R

Preston DEVELOPMENT MODELS The Third World In the tropical regions of the Third
World in general and specifically at the level of the small farm, livestock production is in
crisis. This crisis is closely related with the production models which were implanted in
Third World countries during the post-war period and were intensified in the decades of
the 60's and 70's. In order to introduce these new technologies, many Third World
countries established credit mechanisms, agricultural research programmes, rural
extension schemes, and training programmes aimed at increasing production by
promoting an increase in the productivity of crops and animals. The model that was
advocated for the agronomic sector aimed to bring about a "green revolution",
specifically in cereal grain production, that would solve the nutritional problems and
hunger suffered by millions of people in the Third World. "Improved" production systems
were promoted, based on high performance germ plasm, monocultural practices and
the intensive use of capital, machinery, and costly imported inputs such as fertilizers,
pesticides and herbicides. In the livestock field, priority was given almost exclusively to
the introduction of systems, the technical and economic bases of which - 57 - The result
of these activities has been an increasing dependence on imported inputs, increased
costs of production, reduced rural employment, contamination of the environment and
destruction of ecosystems, deforestation and under-utilization of available resources.
The industrialised countries The transfer of livestock technologies from industrialised to
developing countries, has obviously been largely unsuccessful. Quite apart from the
reasons for such failures, it is relevant to question the basic concepts governing the
models currently employed in the industrialised countries. For, contrary to what is so
often assumed, it may not be desirable - even if it were technically and economically
feasible - to attempt to achieve in Third World countries the styles and standards of
living currently "enjoyed" (??) in the industrialised countries. Leaving aside the social
issues, an assessment of the present agricultural situation in most industrialised
countries shows that: - agricultural products - especially those of animal origin - are
expensive to produce and to buy, - present production systems are wasteful and cause
considerable ecological damage, - the systems of production and the products that are
produced are frequently associated with stress both for animals and humans, and - the
dependence on, and excessive use of, fossil fuel based inputs is causing an alarming
increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which is the main contributer to
the warming of the earth's atmosphere - the "greenhouse effect." It hardly seems
sensible to encourage the developing countries to commit their scarce economic
resources to livestock production programmes which may eventually arrive at the same
inappropriate endpoint. Eco-development and self-reliance The concept of eco-
development has been proposed by Third World economists as an alternative to the
classical development models derived from the industrialised countries, which have
proved to be unsustainable when introduced into developing countries. The basic
feature of eco-development is that the means of improving the quality of life of a
community should be sought within a framework bounded by the limitations -
environmental, social and economic - governing the activities of the community. The
means of achieving such aims should - 58 - be determined by the principles of self-
reliance; in other words, the technologies used should be decided and executed by the
community and should not be dependent on outside events and forces. DESIGN OF
LIVESTOCK TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE TROPICAL THIRD WORLD Goals and
means Improved technologies are essential tools in all forms of development. Past
mistakes in technology transfer can be traced to the failure to understand the
fundamental issues which must be considered before embarking on the design of
technologies. Of these, the major one is: what are the constraints governing the design
of the technologies? Are these the same for both developed and developing countries
or are there basic differences that should be taken into account? Experience from the
Third World tells us that while the scientific principles which underly technologies are
the same, the technologies themselves are likely to be quite different. Some of the
reasons for this statement are set out in Table 1. These differences help to explain why
there are conflicts concerning the strategies that should be applied when national
governments, supported by international and bilateral technical assistance agencies
(whose policies are largely determined by professionals from the industrialised
countries), attempt to introduce innovations in the field of livestock research, technology
transfer and training. Table 1: Design of livestock technologies for industrialised and
developing countries; goals and means
S))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))Q Industrialised Developing
S))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))Q Climate Mostly temperate Mostly
tropical Role of livestock Specialised Multipurpose Target group The rich The poor
Resource base: Feed Starch-protein Fibre-sugars Genetic Improved Native Capital
High Low Labour Low High Mechanisation High Low Agrochemical High Low
Infrastructure Good Poor Marketing Good Poor
S))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))Q - 59 - Experience has shown
quite clearly that it is counter-productive in developing countries to base these activities
on the models that have been, or are currently being, applied in the industrialised
countries. The conclusions of a recent evaluation report on Dutch assistance to the
livestock sector in Third World countries (Netherlands Development Cooperation, 1987)
reveal how much time and effort have been wasted in these endeavours: ..."The
animals (Dutch dairy cattle) were generally unable to adjust to local conditions; climate,
feed and management systems all posed problems. The cattle were unsuited to small
farmers' needs; they could not be used as draught animals and often suffered from
disease stress, leg problems and infertility" .... ...."the experience of twenty years
revealed that the route (intensive livestock projects) had been ill-chosen". THE
"GREENHOUSE EFFECT" Discussing the issues of the world food crisis, population
growth and renewable energy, Dumont (1989) stated: "..Now an even more formidable
threat has appeared on the horizon. Until recently, all forecasts (of crop yields) were
based on the virtually certain knowledge that the world's various climates were
invulnerable to major meteorological upheavals. That last lingering certainty has
passed..... ....it is now established beyond the slightest doubt that increased carbon
dioxide levels in the air as a result of an excessively rapid increase in the use of fossil
fuels, among other things, has caused the world's climate to warm up since the
beginning of the 70s. ....The warming-up process will raise the level of the sea and
threaten the existence of all the great river deltas, especially those in Asia.. ...Increased
temperatures have aggravated droughts and thus reduced the flow of the world's great
rivers... ...Since the last ice age 18,000 years ago, the world temperat - 60 - TOWARDS
A NEW STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT Matching
production systems with available resources The situation that has been described
makes it obligatory to reorientate present production systems and to develop a new
agricultural policy based on optimal use (instead of misuse) of the earth's natural
resources. Such a policy must be rural, rather than urban, orientated and a notable
feature of it will be the economic strengthening and increased independence of the
small-scale farmer. It has been proposed (Preston and Leng, 1987) that such a strategy
be based on the development of agricultural systems which integrate production of food,
fuel and fertilisers, and diverse livestock species, with emphasis on the utilization of: -
Existing under-utilised local resources and wastes (e.g., crop residues, livestock excreta
and agroindustrial byproducts) - New resources derived from more efficient agronomic
systems based on improved utilization of solar energy, soil, water, genetic diversity and
people - which are the natural resources of the tropics. Specific reference is made here
to the use of sugar cane and forage trees and shrubs as the principal elements in such
a scheme. In the long and short term, it is hypothesised that the alternative to fossil fuel
is in biomass derived from solar energy capture and that this is more viable and
desirable than energy from nuclear sources, especially when environmental and social
issues are taken into account. Furthermore, it is proposed that there need be no conflict,
indeed the prospects are for complementarity, in the use of biomass to satisfy both food
and fuel needs. Such a policy presupposes a series of conditions, principal among
which are the following: - crops and cropping systems must be chosen which permit
maximum capture of solar energy and its conversion into biomass; - optimum fixation of
atmospheric nitrogen in relation to the nutrient needs of the selected crops and
associated livestock systems; - fractionation of the crops to satisfy dual needs of
food/feed and fuel; - the livestock components of the system should address the
complementary needs of monogastric and herbivorous animal species. - 61 - - The
overall system should: - be at least self-sufficient in, and preferably a net exporter of,
energy, - not contaminate the environment, - not destroy natural ecosystems, - optimise
employment opportunities, and - promote a maximum degree of self-reliance.
MEASURES THAT CAN BE TAKEN TO REDUCE EMISSIONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE
AND METHANE To the general policy described above, there must now be added a
series of additional recommendations in order to address the specific problem of the
"greenhouse effect". The following measures can be expected to lead to reduced
emissions of methane and carbon dioxide. Not all are immediately executable, but they
indicate what should be the long term goals in order to attain and maintain a balance
between sources and sinks of carbon dioxide and methane. - Giving priority to the
growing of crops which are most efficient in fixing carbon dioxide into biomass (eg:
perennial tropical forage crops and trees). - Encouraging agricultural production in the
tropics of the Third World, instead of promoting self sufficiency in industrialised
temperate countries. This is because food production systems in industrialised countries
are highly dependent on fossil fuelderived inputs. By contrast, most Third World tropical
country systems employ animal and human power, rather than machinery, and they
have a much greater potential for developing biomass-derived fuels. Means to this end
would be the elimination of tariffs on food imports from the tropics, and of subsidies to
farmers in the industrialised countries, and by applying an environmental tax to the use
of fossil fuel since this is the main cause of the "greenhouse effect". - In the tropical
countries, wetland rice should be discouraged and more emphasis given to dryland
cereal production for human consumption. Cereal growing for animal consumption in
tropical countries should be actively discouraged, and emphasis given to perennial
forage crops and forage trees as the basis of intensive animal production. - 62 - -
Grazing systems in the tropics should be actively discouraged, in favour of complete or
semi-confinement of animals. This will permit planting of existing grazing lands with
forests (especially multipurpose forage trees) and favour the greater use of crop
residues as animal feed (instead of burning them). - A massive programme is needed to
promote strategic supplementation of ruminant diets in Third World countries in order to
optimise rumen function (which leads to reduced methane and CO2 production). This
will also lead to increased production of food, or the keeping of fewer animals. - Non-
ruminant species (especially pigs, poultry, rabbits) should be favoured over ruminants
as meat producers, since they produce less methane and carbon dioxide per unit of
product. - Low-cost biogas digestors must be an essential element in all units where
livestock are confined. - Human organic food waste must be recycled through pigs,
and/or earth worms, instead of being allowed to ferment in land fills (giving rise to
methane) or to be incinerated (producing carbon dioxide). - Maximum support should be
given to research and development efforts which will enable fossil-derived fuels to be
replaced by biomass-derived fuels. Gasification of biomass to produce hydrogen and
carbon monoxide (can be used directly as fuel or as substrates for chemical industry)
would appear to be the most appropriate technology to promote. REQUIRED
INFRASTRUCTURE Political or Technological Reform? It is usually assumed that the
first constraint to rural development is the need for reform of land tenure. However, it is
becoming increasingly apparent that, with or without agrarian reform, there is no way
that farming systems can absorb the "landless" labour force that exists in rural areas in
most of the Third World. New solutions are needed and these must be based on
proposals for technological as well as political change. Tropical countries offer exciting
possibilities for technological reform, because of the largely untapped potential for
biomass production in regions blessed with abundant supplies of solar energy, high
mean temperatures and rainfall. However, the realization of such potential wil require an
original approach not only to the growing of the biomass but also its utilization. - 63 -
Energy (with food as a byproduct) will be the key to such schemes, and the utilization of
biomass as feedstock for a chemical industry will be as important as providing a
substitute for present fossil-based liquid fuels. Rural industries based on "biomass
refineries" promise to solve problems which are immediate, such as increasing rural
employment, and of longer term, as is the prospect of developing a viable and safe
alternative to non-renewable energy sources, both fossil and nuclear. The need to
reverse the greenhouse effect, coupled with the concern about the risks and the
environmental contamination associated with the nuclear option, is a golden opportunity
for the tropical regions to exploit their largely untapped resources inherent in the
opportunity to use solar energy throughout the year. Existing rates of photosynthesis
permit the capture of 10 times more energy than is presently consumed as fossil fuel
(Hall, 1984: personal communication). This is being achieved with an overall global
efficiency of only 0.2%. By contrast, a perennial tropical crop such as sugar cane fixes
solar energy at 10 times this rate (2% annually) (Bassham, 1978). Tropical trees are
almost as efficient and most have the added virtue of being able to fix ambient nitrogen
in their root system. STRATEGIES FOR MILK PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN THE
TROPICS Where, in the above scheme, does tropical milk production fit and what
strategy should be followed in establishing this kind of activity? The starting point must
be an analysis of the actually and potentially available resources. There are no
specialised tropical dairy animal breeds, other than the Riverine type of bufffalo.
Furthermore attempts to create them have not proved to be sustainable. The impact of
the Australian Milking Zebu and of the Jamaica Hope, for example, has been minimal
outside the immediate areas where they were developed. The immediately available
and numerically important cattle resources in the tropics are Bos taurus beef cattle.
There are many advantages from using these as a basis for milk production through
crossbreeding, foremost among which is the increase in productivity and in biological
efficiency that results when milk and beef production are combined in the same animal.
Converting existing extensive beef cattle systems in tropical countries into dual purpose
milk-beef enterprises will increase their productivity and biological and economic
efficiency. In ecological terms, this means a global reduction in methane production per
unit of animal product, and the possibility of reducing total animal numbers (fewer, more
productive animals consuming the same basic feed resources). From the nutritional
standpoint, the increase in productivity required in a dual purpose, as opposed to a
specialised beef animal, - 64 - does not entail substitution of local feed resources by
exotic (usually grain-based) "balanced dairy feeds" as is the case when specialised
dairy breeds and systems are introduced (Netherlands Development Corporation 1987).
What is needed is strategic supplementation with rumen activators and bypass
nutrients, which can be met by judicious use of mostly locally available tropical
agroindustrial byproducts (e.g., multi-nutritional blocks from molasses and urea, rumen
micro-nutrients and bypass macro-nutrients from oilseed cakes and tree foliages (see
paper by Leng, this conference)). CONCLUSIONS A new era is dawning in
development strategy. Participation is mandatory in the setting of goals and
identification of means. It is also becoming apparent that, because both the goals and
the means are not the same, the initiatives taken by developing countries in establishing
their own development strategies must not only be respected, but may also serve as
stimuli for more effective cooperation between developed and developing countries.
Inadequate human nutrition is still the most immediate problem in most developing
countries. But it is now being realised that the solution is not simply to increase
productivity but to tackle more fundamental issues, foremost among which is the
warming of the earth's atmosphere, caused by increased ambient concentration of
carbon dioxide (mainly due to increased use of fossil fuels). This threatens, in the
shorter term, to reduce crop yields and, in the longer term, heralds unmitigated disaster
through flooding of river deltas. Reversing the "greenhouse effect" will require promotion
of solar efficient perennial crops, and forage trees, which simulate forest ecosystems
and provide a sink for carbon dioxide. The biomass from these crops should lend itself
to fractionation into low and high fibre components, the former being the basis of
intensive confinement production of monogastric animals, while the latter can be
converted into versatile energy-yielding substrates suitable either as ruminant feeds or,
through the process of gasification, as the basis of a chemical industry (hydrogen and
carbon monoxide). Liquid and solid wastes can be recycled through biodigesters and
earthworms with much reduced emissions of methane and carbon dioxide, compared
with processing them through conventional oxidation lagoons and land fills. In the field
of livestock production, increasing emphasis must be given to systems which reduce
methane emissions per unit of livestock product, at the same time permitting greater
use of locally and potentially available resources. In this respect the two major
approaches are: giving greater emphasis to monogastric species (especially pigs) as
meat producers, and adapting presently inefficient extensive beef operations into dual
purpose milk-beef systems. - 65 - These technologies, which are now being developed
in Third World countries, will lead to more sustainable systems of livestock production,
to employment generation, to increased availability of renewable energy and - most
importantly -to a reversing of the "greenhouse effect". The challenge facing
governments of industrialised and Third World countries alike is to be able to accept
that development without either fossil or nuclear fuels is not only technically feasible but
will bring with it much needed sociological and ecological benefits through the greater
role that will be given to rural areas as the future source of both feed and fuel. The
implementation of these new strategies will require a greater appreciation of: -
Communication as a means of promoting: - understanding of changing priorities, -
awareness of common problems and the means of overcoming these, and -
Relationships founded on technological support rather than economic dominance. - The
concepts of ecodevelopment and self-reliance when designing and implementing
technologies. REFERENCES Bassham, J.A. Photosynthetic productivity of tropical and
temperate 1978 crops. Caribbean Consultancy on Energy and Agriculture. Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic. November 29th, 1978. Dumont, R. Education of women
offers best hope for world food crisis. 1989 Le Monde: Paris, March 30. pp. 16-17.
Netherlands Development Cooperation. Assisting livestock development. 1987
Evaluation Report. Netherlands Development Cooperation (Ministry of Foreign Affaires):
The Hague. Preston, T.R. and Leng, R.A. Matching ruminant production systems with
1987 available resources in the tropics and sub-tropics. Penambul Books: Armidale,
Australia pp. 245. Preston, T.R. and Murgueitio, E. Tree and shrub legumes as protein
1987 sources for livestock. In: Forage legumes and other local protein sources as
substitutes for imported protein meals (Editor: D.